Thank you Christy for that clarification. I personally think that this discussion here is really fruitful to me to see another paradigm of thought/belief that I haven’t seen before. Fruitful because I might be wrong in my assertion but let’s see.
As now I understand your position, I must admit that it is completely new to me and I never thought that kind of thought that we human being is pretty much the same kind of human no matter what kind of bodies (physical or spiritual) that we have. Though I am less keen about the image bearers by God since not much discussion about that in the bible and not sure how staying human is super central to Christian theology and eschatology, I agree that you have perfect right and perhaps ample reasons for your definition of humanity.
This is where I still have problem with your view Christy. If you are saying that no matter what kind of bodies, we are still pretty much human, in what way Jesus (who is God) was ever part of humanity because His spirit is always God and He took on a human body.
It’s from one of the twelve thousand-plus pages of reading from a graduate course in Canonization of the New Testament (not counting the several required books). It wasn’t that they were seeing things and fitting them to the text, it was that they read the text and recognized that what it spoke of was happening all around them.
Also from that course, only a small minority of early Christians actually thought it was written by either the Apostle or the Elder. Acceptance of such authorship was more common after the fourth century.
Possible, but a lot of pseudepigraphal writings did the same. Much more important than this were the seven letters to the seven churches, the seven most important in Asia (minor), all with connections to both Johns.
“Only” doesn’t quite work there: were they here to talk about it, they would say that certainly it is about what’s happening now, because it was about the end times, which we’re still living in. Given the apocalyptic nature they wouldn’t expect it to stop having meaning in terms of us looking around and seeing what it conveys happening around us.
BTW, this article has a useful portion on Revelation:
No – Jesus’ example is normative and what Paul says has to be measured according to it. We are, after all, to be resurrected to be like Him.
False dichotomy; “spiritual” does not necessarily exclude physical. We in modern times like to draw a sharp line, but in the ancient world there was no such thing. And we know that the spiritual can include the physical, since Jesus’ earthly body was resurrected – that’s what resurrection means, after all. To borrow a phrase from Paul, the earthly body is changed – but not into something different, rather something “elevated”.
So the Resurrection was just a trick, and that body didn’t actually rise? There goes Christianity out the window.
Jesus demonstrated to Thomas that it was the same body – same wounds, after all.
God is infinite. We are finite.
He has to be “near kin” to us to be our Redeemer. If He lost His humanity, then He can no longer be Redeemer.
Besides which, as I noted before, Jesus didn’t just put on a “people suit” that He could take on again, He became human.
Because He “became flesh”, for starters; it doesn’t say “He dressed up in flesh”. The Incarnate One is still Incarnate because it was a union, not a dress-up.
And Redeemer is not a “task”, it is an ongoing relationship (showing that is a big reason why Ruth belongs in the canon). Get rid of the relationship and the redeemed status goes as well; if He is not still close kin, then we are not still redeemed.
You’re turning God into a trickster: if Jesus isn’t human now, then He never was – being human isn’t something to be put on and off like clothes. If He isn’t human, then there is no Kingdom of God because we aren’t His brothers and sisters!
We know it’s the same body He had before the Resurrection because He said so: “Destroy this temple and I will raise it up” – meaning His body. He didn’t say “And I will replace it”, He said, “I will raise it up”.
And He promised the same to us, not that we would turn into something different but that we would be “raised up”. Paul says that
“the dead shall be raised”
the standard meaning of this is that the bodies get back their life
“incorruptible, and we shall be altered/changed”
the first word tells us how those bodies will get back their life; not as Lazarus did, with a corruptible body that died again, but with life that cannot be corrupted – we shall be “altered” or “changed”.
The plain sense here is that the mortal bodies we had will be restored and that this won’t stop with restoration, that those bodies will be incorruptible – we’ll get changed. Paul calls this a mystery because even once explained it isn’t explained, only described; he doesn’t tell us how we’ll get changed other than that we ourselves will have been made incorruptible. He just adds a bit of a summary (with a nice Hebrew-type parallelism):
“For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”
He doesn’t say “this corruptible” or “this mortal” will be replaced, only that it will be altered so that it is incorruptible and immortal.
Being Redeemer isn’t about sacrifice, it’s about someone who is close kin to two parties making peace between them, and it’s not a task, it’s a status. Read Ruth: Boaz is a type of Christ and His marriage with the church. Boaz didn’t have a wedding ceremony and then walk off.
So you’ve got Jesus play-acting again.
You’re not grasping that “the Word became flesh”; you’re saying “the Word dressed up in flesh”. John in his introduction to his Gospel uses the word “became”, not just because it popped into his mind but because it conveys that the identity of the Word now includes flesh – human flesh, the sort of flesh that lives here on Earth. Jesus showed Thomas that body because that was Jesus’ actual body, not as some sort of audio-visual aid.
One that, as Paul says, has been “changed”.
Plainly from the example of Jesus’ appearances it no longer suffers a number of limitations. The first obvious one is that He was transformed enough that even His disciples didn’t recognize Him without His prompting. The second is that either He no longer needed blood or that His wounds no longer served as exits for blood, since He told Thomas to stick his fingers into the wounds; thus they were not closed up as normal wounds would be on a living person. A third is that He didn’t need doors; he could just appear where He wanted to be – and the reverse was true; He could vanish as He willed. Then there’s the evidence that He can still eat, but we don’t get enough information to say much more than that – it’s commonly concluded that He didn’t need to eat, since eating for sustenance is a mark of “this corruptible” since not eating leads to breakdowns in the body and ultimately death, and that makes it a pretty solid conclusion.
So this immortal body has some things going on with energy: the cells get energy from somewhere other than food – maybe a heavenly hot-line to the mitochondria? – though seemingly they can still get energy from it; He can translocate or phase through solid barriers, which involves some sort of energy either to power translocation or to cause the molecules of His body and the molecules of regular matter to move in coordinated failure to exert electromagnetic forces [my money is on translocation: since Jesus is One Person of the Trinity, and since the Triune God is everywhere, all Jesus has to do is think of where He desires to be and “go between” (no dragon needed) – or as my mathematician brother might put it, just redefine His local coordinates and arrive at the new ones without having physically moved (quantum translocation, anyone?).
Thought being an aspect shared by God and humans, I presume all this happens due to thought, though I will grant that the energy connection doesn’t need any but is like breathing; He would have to think about it to stop drawing on this other energy source.
As to what this other energy source is, I’ll go back to the first thing God commanded into existence: light. Christian mystics through the centuries have from time to time touched on the idea that we were meant to be creatures of light such that it was light that served as food; I’ll take that but say it’s not what light comes from outside and “charges” this body, it’s light coming from within. Light as photons is energy that can move our mitochondrial chemistry just as well as the chemical reactions do at present; the essence isn’t the source of the energy but the presence of it.
And that leads to something near the theme of another thread, about how sinful nature is passed and that it might be biological through DNA: DNA here is also key. It’s key first of all because part of “this corruption” is errors in copying DNA and RNA, and also in that DNA itself deteriorates. So I now propose a second autonomic function of this heavenly energy source besides that of fueling our mitochondria: it keeps our DNA from making any mistakes – and for that matter, does the same for all body molecules. Of course that requires that the energy is guided, directed, but the source of that is easy: “this corruptible” put on “incorruption”, which will include restoring our DNA to pristine condition (perhaps even more pristine than we were born with).
But technically it will be a flesh and bone body, not a flesh and blood body. We don’t see the difference, but in the first century A.D. “flesh and bone” indicated the solid, functional reality of a physical body, while “flesh and blood” referenced mortality. Our dry bones will indeed take on flesh and live – whether we will have blood at all I’m not even going to guess at.
The Fathers waxed eloquent on those same wounds being in Heaven “at the right hand of the Father”, the place of power. There’s actually no question that it was the ‘same body’ in the rude sense because He said it was what He would raise – and I think this is a good place to invoke a common theological principle, the “more than, but never less than” parameter: because Jesus told everyone that His body would be raised, then He now has a body that is not less than His crucified one but is certainly more than that!
From what He said to Thomas I’d say the wounds were still wounds just as they had been when His body was hurriedly covered for placing in the tomb, since Jesus indicates Thomas can get his fingers into them. Kibitzing from the Fathers, those wounds are eternal wounds, but they are not “damage”, they are instead trophies of the Victory and as long as they endure so will our victory; they are emblems of the Father’s love for humanity and of the Son’s love for both humanity and His Father, the sight of which sends minions of darkness fleeing in incomprehension.
I’ll take a few steps out a limb and say the wounds wouldn’t hurt. Pain is a gift for “the corruptible” because it announces to us that we have incurred damage of some sort – so as they are rather trophies than damage, they wouldn’t hurt. . . . which totally skips the question of whether a glorified incorruptible body can even take damage – e.g., if a Roman soldier had come upon them in a meeting, could he have chopped off Jesus’ arm even if Jesus just stood still? I’m going to say no, he couldn’t, but not because of any Superman-like invulnerability, rather for the same reason He could translocate or perhaps phase through walls: the molecules of the sword would just pass right through the molecules of Jesus’ arm (probably producing fainting spells all around).
While it is true that Jesus’ example is normative, there is no teaching in the Gospels about the resurrected body of Jesus. that is why I said that we should start with 1 Cor 15, and then we can have some idea about what kind of glorious body that Jesus had.
It is not me who draw the comparison, but Paul. He was comparing this natural body with spiritual glorious body. Basically, Paul was saying that this spiritual body is nothing like the natural (physical) body. If you mean that Paul is not excluding physical from physical, then you might have problem with the exegesis of that passage.
I will refer you to the teaching from 1 Cor 15 50-53 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
I am not denying that Jesus’ body was resurrected, but as it was raised, it was also changed. The physical was changed to spiritual, the mortal was to put on immortality. Where is the old physical body? It was no more, it was transformed to the new glorious body. As in the case of Jesus, I believe that He might carry the wound of the nail and the side wound in His Spiritual body. Could Jesus show Himself to His disciples in a physical body (flesh and bone)? Sure, why not.
perhaps you could give me a passage in the bible that teach this thing. I just don’t see anything in the bible that teach anything close to this, but perhaps you can show me.
Again, I am really interested in where in the bible you get this kind of teaching.
Philippians 2:7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
But He did put on the humanity (by taking the form of a servant), then why did he has to keep it for eternity once the task was done?
He became human and died for us, not because he could be like us for eternity, but to bring us to be like Him in the kingdom of God for eternity.
I think you are reading too much in this passage.
Now, here I agree with you. How our body will be replaced or altered or put on immortality is a mystery till the time comes. Although the word “Allasso” in 1 Cor 15:51 basically means “to change, to exchange one thing for another, to transform”, but I am no expert of greek, so I leave it at that.
It is quite interesting that you mention Boaz redeeming Ruth. Then to the book of Ruth we go. Remember that Boaz redeemed Ruth only once where Ruth became His wife for life. The same with Christ, He redeemed us once for all, but His marriage with the church is forever.
I agree that Jesus became flesh while he was here on earth. The fact that you interpret that verse to include eternity is beyond the meaning of that verse since that verse itself never said “the Word became flesh for eternity” and it was in past tense, so John never intended that verse to carry the same meaning at his present time “the Word is still flesh” or carry the meaning “the Word will be flesh forever”.
This is why the East speaks of “theosis”, of becoming like God via transformation by grace and the Spirit. I forget which Father said it – and will note that it loses some meaning taken out of context – but it became a standard theological meme, “God became man that man might become God”. Indeed mystics have speculated that the Incarnation was the necessary “balance” for our restoration and joining with God, that for us to take on aspects of God, God had to take on material nature, and that this would have been true even apart from the Crucifixion.
He never left His place in the Godhead – the Trinity cannot be fractured, let alone divided. He did “empty himself”, something theologians have been debating the meaning of since about ten minutes after that letter of Paul’s was read out loud to an audience (a phrase that in my mind has this heavenly balloon with Jesus’ face on it having the air let out), but theologians have taken the matter as one of where His attention was, namely on Earth within a body/person annexed to the divine Person, and that during the Earthly phase of the Incarnation His attention was bound to this Earth, and so as the One Person of the Incarnate Word there were things He didn’t know about.
But it is a matter of retaining His humanity: He didn’t put it on like a coat, He “became flesh”: flesh is now part of the identity of the Second Member of the Trinity.
Quite so. Indeed if you had the chance to ask a Christian back then if they would be resurrected with their physical human body there’s a good chance they would have just frowned at you, because that’s what resurrection meant. And Paul starts with that, with “this corruptible”, and tells us that as fast as we are raised, so fast are we transformed, changed.
And of Paul: >
There is only one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus
This is a couple of decades after the Resurrection and Ascension, and Paul says that right then, as he was writing, Christ Jesus was a man. It’s a man who “sits at the right hand of the Father”.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.
For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily
The top one, from Romans, is θειότης (thay-OH-tace), and is probably better translated “Godhood” or “divinity” these days. The second, from Acts 17, is τὸ Θεῖον, and “Godhead” works quite well there, the word being in the neuter it isn’t referring to God in a personal way. The last, from Colossians, is Θεότητος which is actually the same word in Romans, just the genitive rather than the nominative, and interestingly “Godhead” works okay here though I have a few misgivings due to the drift in meaning between “Godhead” and “Godhood”, indeed enough misgivings to say “Godhood” is better in this case.
So “Godhead” is a biblical term, indicating the Trinity as a whole and not in personal fashion. It’s a rather philosophical concept more so than most of what’s in the Bible, and definitely narrower in meaning than what it used to be but the meaning may actually be closer to the Greek due to that narrowing. So I’ll stand by its use in
“Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device”
though in part because there’s no better English word to render Θεῖον; “divinity” is used but I think that falls short of Paul’s point here in contrasting God with silver and gold and stone – “Godhead” still smacks of personal-ness, whereas “divinity” is an abstract (unless it’s my grandmother’s Christmas candy, which wasn’t abstract at all).
There are also in some translations some verses where it’s been stuck in where it has no business, for example Col 1:19 where the word is plucked from farther on – it isn’t translating anything, and if you read in Greek with decent education behind you you’ll notice that inserting it changes the point Paul was making!
I think you’re confusing the issue by using the modern notion of “spiritual”, though not the recent “New Age” version – indeed the New Age version is closer to first century thought by a long reach because it recognizes that physical things can be spiritual. Using your dualism, when we are merely spirit, we are less than fully human, but in the terms Paul is using when he says we will have a spiritual body that is human but more; is it spiritual in the sense of “a life-giving spirit”, i.e. a spirit which rather than being trapped in a physical body instead energizes that body so that while the body is still material it is more importantly spiritual.
Jesus had a human spirit, or He could not have atoned for humanity: He had to be fully human, and – being born of Mary – was and is.
While I have read that Jesus had a human nature (body, mind, will and emotion), I never heard that Jesus also had a human spirit. Though He was born of Mary, He was not conceived by man, but by the Holy Spirit. Are you saying that Jesus God-Man also at the same time has the spirit of God and the Spirit of Man united but separate? Where in the bible or in the church tradition or history can you find such teaching?
The linked text was nice to read. Showed examples of how many different kind of opinions and interpretations have been said during the past centuries. Those differing opinions still live today.
I respect historical and theological research and like to read what has been concluded. At the same time, I do not swallow everything that is taught about the history and interpretation of scriptures. Instead, I think that it is important to examine the basis of different claims. Some theological claims have strong basis, many do not. Often you are told the conclusions but not the basis and reasoning that has lead to the conclusions. It may be illuminating to compare the basis and reasoning behind different interpretations because that helps to see what is generally agreed, what are the points where the opinions diverge and why people have interpreted these points in a different way.
Revelation is a difficult book to interpret, except the letters to the churches at the start of the book. No wonder there are differing interpretations. I guess we agree about some points, probably not all, which is normal. Differing viewpoints and differing use of words may make it somewhat difficult to even see where we agree.
Edit:
Interpretation of biblical scriptures may seem to be purely theology. In reality, our interpretation affects how we live and respond to everyday challenges and the results of scientific research. For example, how we interpret Revelation may drive our response to information about climate change and loss of species. No need to preserve Nature if it will be soon destroyed and we will be in heaven when that happens. That is one of the reasons why I am interested to discuss interpretations about Revelation and other biblical scriptures.
The King James translation? Seriously? The translation which altered the text to support the theological demands of the English monarchy, and added the Trinity to the Bible?
The King James is not the text but an obvious distortion of the text. And the actual text was written in Greek not English. The word is θειότης meaning divinity or divine nature and it has nothing to do with the doctrine of the Trinity or the relationship between the persons of God. AND the context of Romans 1:20 makes agrees with this meaning.
If bluebird1 had said “assuming His divinity or divine nature” then subtracting the complaint about the word my response that Jesus was 100% human and 100% God would certainly remain applicable.
Godhead is NOT a Biblical term. θειότης is not the word “Godhead.” And Θεῖον from Acts 17:29 is not the word “Godhead” either but means divinity or divine being. Nor is Θεότητος from Collosians this word “Godhead” – that word is Deity.
The word Godhead is most likely an invention of Meister Eckhart, Though some have suggested connections to mysticism, Arianism, or Sabellianism.
Son of Man is a title in Scripture that speaks to Christ’s humanity in contrast to his divinity. It’s ben Adam in Hebrew and draws a specific link from Christ to Adam to all Humanity. The Son of Man is the title that is repeatedly used for Christ in Revelation to describe his return and reign in the New Creation.
This is why the East speaks of “theosis”, of becoming like God via transformation by grace and the Spirit. I forget which Father said it – and will note that it loses some meaning taken out of context – but it became a standard theological meme, “God became man that man might become God”. Indeed mystics have speculated that the Incarnation was the necessary “balance” for our restoration and joining with God, that for us to take on aspects of God, God had to take on material nature, and that this would have been true even apart from the Crucifixion.
He never left His place in the Godhead – the Trinity cannot be fractured, let alone divided. He did “empty himself”, something theologians have been debating the meaning of since about ten minutes after that letter of Paul’s was read out loud to an audience (a phrase that in my mind has this heavenly balloon with Jesus’ face on it having the air let out), but theologians have taken the matter as one of where His attention was, namely on Earth within a body/person annexed to the divine Person, and that during the Earthly phase of the Incarnation His attention was bound to this Earth, and so as the One Person of the Incarnate Word there were things He didn’t know about.
But it is a matter of retaining His humanity: He didn’t put it on like a coat, He “became flesh”: flesh is now part of the identity of the Second Member of the Trinity.
Quite so. Indeed if you had the chance to ask a Christian back then if they would be resurrected with their physical human body there’s a good chance they would have just frowned at you, because that’s what resurrection meant. And Paul starts with that, with “this corruptible”, and tells us that as fast as we are raised, so fast are we transformed, changed.
And of Paul: >
There is only one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus
This is a couple of decades after the Resurrection and Ascension, and Paul says that right then, as he was writing, Christ Jesus was a man. It’s a man who “sits at the right hand of the Father”.
Christ is understood as 100% human and 100% divine. I do not understand what is meant by ‘retaining his humanity’. Cor 2:10-16 is instructive, as it refers to the spirit of man, the Holy Spirit, and the mind of Christ. The Gospel urges repentance, for the Kingdom of God is at hand. It unambiguously states that all who repent and seek forgiveness, by the grace of God, will become citizens of the Kingdom. The central question to humanity is that of sin and redemption, the forgiveness of our sins through the blood of Christ and the growth of repentant souls into the children of God. This may now be discussed within the context of the first Adam and the last Adam. The sum of (good) human possibilities are comprehended, culminating in Christ; humanity progresses (its destiny) into persons who are like Christ. We may progress from our present state (symbolized by the first Adam) into that revealed by the actions and teachings of Christ (the final Adam). This thesis would require a careful review of the attributes of humanity as we are now, and how we attain to the ultimate attributes revealed by Christ.
Theosis is (briefly) this transformation into Christ like (Christians). The discussion on the nature of a spiritual body can be referred to scripture - it cannot be the physical body we have now.
Here’s another ancient aphorism: “What He did not assume, He could not redeem”. The idea is that of there’s any part of what it is to be human that was left out when Jesus became flesh, then that part can’t get redeemed because it wasn’t part of the redemption effort (using redemption here in the “buy back” sense).
So if we have spirits as part of being human, then Jesus had a human spirit as well, otherwise our spirits would not be redeemed. Having a spirit is part of us being human, so to redeem us fully He had to have a human spirit – it’s the “fully human” side of His being.
It was sort of taken for granted when the Nicene Creed was written, saying:
We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ . . . who for us humans and for our salvation came down from Heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made Man".
At that point that was all that was really needed; the heresies up to that time either accepted that He really was a man or denied it altogether; there wasn’t much subtlety about it. But a century later the heresies had grown more “refined”, including several different ways to view Jesus as God and man, with sufficient dispute in preaching, church politics, monks “rumbling” in the streets, and less organized contests that the emperor had had enough and called a council to settle the issues. This council was held at Chalcedon, and while the result of that council was a schism in the church the amazing thing is that there really wasn’t any disagreement on substance, only on the best words to use. Given the stature of the men on both sides it could have been brought to a unified resolution if it hadn’t been for the emperor’s interference, essentially blackmailing the Council into making a snap decision without thorough exploration of the issues.
So resulted the Chalcedonian Definition (because previous councils had set down that there would be no new creeds), the substance of which the two sides agreed on:
> Following, then, the holy Fathers, we all unanimously teach that our Lord Jesus Christ is to us One and the same Son, the Self-same Perfect in Godhead, the Self-same Perfect in Manhood; truly God and truly Man; the Self-same of a rational soul and body; co-essential with the Father according to the Godhead, the Self-same co-essential with us according to the Manhood; like us in all things, sin apart; before the ages begotten of the Father as to the Godhead, but in the last days, the Self-same, for us and for our salvation (born) of Mary the Virgin Theotokos as to the Manhood; One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten; acknowledged >IN< Two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis; not as though He was parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ; even as from the beginning the prophets have taught concerning Him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself hath taught us, and as the Symbol of the Fathers hath handed down to us.
I marked the single word that was disagreed on to make it stand out; I really wish we could do colored text to really make things distinct. That one word is “in”, while the minority wanted “from”; the first emphasizing that Christ is fully human and fully divine, not some mixture, while the second emphasizes that the two natures are united in one Person. Both sides agreed with both of those positions; the only difference was that each side was dealing with a different heresy as the largest concern.
I also learned recently that someone at the Council suggested a wording that would say “acknowledged of two natures”, but it was rejected as too vague.
I’ve studied this enough that I can make an argument in favor of “in two natures” and just as good an argument for “from two natures”, and the thing is that I see the relevance of both yet don’t see how they could have included both.
Now look up there and see this phrase:
the Self-same of a rational soul and body
“Rational soul” is a term that includes the human spirit (the church had already slipped into Platonic dualism); “soul and body” was an idiom that meant “entire human”. The earlier phrase “the Self-same Perfect in Manhood” means the same thing, but they were being really thorough. One point was to avoid the heresy that Jesus didn’t have a human soul/spirit at all, that as God He sort of “wore” the body like a living “people suit”. Though not mentioned, an important concept here is that of the Kinsman-Redeemer of the Old Testament who when functioning as a reconciler has to be close kin to both sides. Since Christ’s work wasn’t just to “partly” reconcile or redeem us, then He had to not just be close but be identical to both parties. And it’s worth noting here that the Council speaks of Christ in the present tense – He is the Son, He is like us, making it plain that Jesus in heaven is, as Paul says “the man Christ Jesus”.
I didn’t bother to check the translation, I just looked for versions that used the word.
And it didn’t “add the Trinity to the Bible”, though that’s not a matter for this thread.
I know “the actual text was written in Greek not English”; here’s the text as I consulted it:
And the same word is used in Colossians as in Romans.
Yeah, I said that was the word there.
Of course it has to do with the Trinity: God is triune. And the gender of a noun in Greek can matter.
All you’re doing is hand-waving and recommending different words. I took the word in dispute, found places it was used, read the text (i.e. the Greek), considered the meaning back then and now, and reached a conclusion. That conclusion remains that given the meaning of “Godhead” at the present time it is a perfectly good translation of θειότης in the Acts passage but not the other two.
By the way . . .
Meister Eckhart is about the right century to be the one who first used the term in English, but it goes back into Anglo and proto-German, so at most he adopted it. And the mention of mysticism and Sabellianism are redundant; Eckhart qualifies as both.
Though I’ll say this: if you’re reading Eckhart, you’re getting a meaning for the term that is about a half dozen centuries out of use. The term as it came into English from the Anglo-Saxon and early German doesn’t mean what he used it for at all, it meant the “condition of being God”, not some imagined “source” beyond God from which God arose, and nowadays it means the “nature of God”. (In fact I don’t think Eckhart ever wrote in English, only in German and Latin, which makes his use only a matter of curiosity here.) In later use it refers to God as a unity, which is in part why it isn’t appropriate for the Romans passage or the Colossians one.
In fact the word first occurs in English in one of the early Bible translations, and I doubt the translator(s) was a follower of Eckhart.
Just out of curiosity, why did you immediately jump to the use by a heretic Dominican instead of the use at the time of the translations that have it?
Wow, I learn more and more as the discussion is moving along. And yes, you are right @St.Roymond that the chalcedonies definition contain such phrases. It is orthodoxy all right. Is it understandable? not really. Is it logical? not really. That is why I hate to be dogmatic concerning such issues as there are many mysteries and beyond what the bible is revealing to us. Perhaps we can revisit this Chalcedonies definition and instead of claiming its orthodoxy and all other views as heresy, we can have an honest look of what the bible really says about this issue. Just because it was defined by a council did not mean that it was right. It has to be judged by the bible instead of the council.
When I said whether it is logical, I mean this. If there are 2 completely different human nature in the person of Jesus Christ (2 different spirits, wills, minds, etc), no wonder we have Nestorianism who believe in the two persons of Christ. How can one person have 2 different wills and two different minds? (will of God and will of Man at the same time) Even the definition of Trinity allows for 3 different persons in the Godhead (each with His own will and mind though They are in harmony with each other…
Now, let me be clear that the Chalcedonies definition of the person of Christ might be correct, but it must be open to be challenged in its claim. Some theologians are doing just that by proposing Neo-apolloariansim (William Lane Craig) or with Kenotic Christology (Which I found quite compatible with the scripture).
That is what my original intention with this topic. Can we defend what we believe in Chalcedonies definition from the passage of the scripture?
I use ‘nature’ (from the Oxford) as: the basic or inherent features, qualities, or character of a person or thing; inborn or hereditary characteristics as an influence on or determinant of personality.
Spirit: the non-physical part of a person which is the seat of emotions and character; this regarded as surviving after the death of the body,
I also equate spirit of man with God’s breath of life. Some biblical references:
Gen 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
Rev 11:11 Now after the three and a half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them.
Job 32:8 But there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding
Job 33:4 The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life
2Cor 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord
Rom 8:15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out…
Rom 8:9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Rom 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
Ok… but my understanding is a little different from yours.
Spirit: the non-physical (outside of the space-time structure) part of a person which continues the effects of the choices people (and other living organisms) make, beyond physical life. But there is no evidence for any non-physical component necessary for the emotions and character of people during life and much evidence to the contrary.
I do not. God’s breath of life is inspiration and it does give life to the mind which is a physical thing – a living organism with its own needs and inheritance different from that of the body.
There is certainly no life stuff or non-physical thing by which the body has life. Our body like every other living organism has life because of its physical composition, organization, and processes.
God created the body of man from the stuff of the Earth (i.e. matter) according to the laws of nature, and gave life to the mind by the inspiration of His word. And that agrees with the text in Job.
2 Corinthians 3 is speaking of the effect of the law upon us. Previously Paul has said it brings death. But here he says that the written code is like a veil over the mind which is lifted in a relationship with God.
In Romans 8, Paul is speaking of much the same thing. We are under a law of sin and death, because in weakness we fail to live up to the law given by God, and habits of our actions weigh us with chains of bondage. But we are set free from this by Jesus, who gives us the means to break away from our habits with a new way of living, guided by the Spirit of God.